


Car Trouble

by trishabooms



Category: Supernatural RPF
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-07-27
Updated: 2013-07-27
Packaged: 2017-12-21 12:29:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,715
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/900320
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/trishabooms/pseuds/trishabooms
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jeff has a meeting with an eccentric author. He really should have let Cliff drive him.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Car Trouble

“ _At the approaching exit take the next turn, right. At the approaching exit take the…_ ”

 

Jeff curled his hand into a fist and smacked it hard into the face of his rental car’s inbuilt Sat Nav system, all remaining patience gone. The useless thing had been squawking out the same directions, in Kim Cattrall’s irritating drawl, for the past hour or more, defying all his attempts to turn the fucking thing _off_! Everything else in his so called luxury hire car had managed to turn off, including the air-con. Jeff was lost, hot and thoroughly fucking pissed.

 

“ _At the approaching exit take the next turn, right…_ ”

 

“For pities sake, shut the fuck up!” He glared out at the same flat, featureless, arid stretch of highway he’d been staring at for the last couple of hours and wondered where the hell he was. Hell was probably a pretty good description, it was surely hot enough. Heat shimmered off the road and the temperature in the car had soared in the last hour. Something was wrong with the electrics in the damn thing. He couldn’t get the air-con to come back on line and although the passenger side window was fully down the one on the driver’s side had struggled to open a couple of inches before giving up altogether. Jeff had shed his jacket, the knot in his tie rested somewhere over his heart and he’d unbuttoned his collar and rolled up his shirt sleeves, it wasn’t helping all that much.

 

He checked his watch, shocked when he realised it was almost two in the afternoon and it occurred to him that he needed to do something pretty soon, the idea of having to spend the night in the car didn’t exactly appeal.

 

He bit the bullet and picked up his phone from the burning black leather of the passenger seat and glanced down to dial the familiar number.

 

“Morgan Associates, Jensen Ackles speaking…”

 

“It’s me.” Jeff couldn’t hold in a sigh. “I erm, I’m lost in the ass end of nowhere and… I’m having a spot of car trouble.”

 

“I _told_ you to let Cliff drive you but do you _ever_ listen to me?”

 

“Turning up with a damn driver isn’t the kinda thing that’d gonna impress a man like Collins.”

 

He heard Jensen’s pained sigh. “What’s wrong with the car?”

 

“What, I’m a mechanic now?”

 

Another sigh and the sound of Jensen’s pen tapping against his desk, a sure sign his PA was close to losing his temper. “Where are you?”

 

“I have no fucking clue.”

 

 

“How can you not know where you are, surely you have _some_ idea?”

“Kim Cattrall’s been tellin’ me to take a right for the past hour, whatever road it thinks I’m on this aint it. The air-con’s fucked, the damn windows won’t open and it must be a hundred degrees in here.”

 

“So you figured that getting lost in your hire car and dying of heat stroke would somehow impress Collins?”

 

“You’re so fu…” The sound of the car’s engine suddenly changed and it began to lose power. “Shit!”

 

The car slowly rolled to a stop.

 

“Jeff?”

 

“Can we sue the hire car company?”

 

“Now what?”

 

Jeff tried, in vain to restart the car. “The engine cut out, it won’t start again.”

 

“Well, hell, that can’t be good. Let me think…” There was silence on the other end for a moment and then Jensen spoke again. “You have GPS on your phone, right?”

 

“Yeah, but I don’t have any kind of map app or whatever.”

 

“Of course not, that would be too easy. You need to check if your GPS is turned on, to do that you go into…”

 

“I’m not a complete idiot, Jensen.”

 

“You’re the boss. Is it turned on?”

 

Jeff tried not to fumble too much with his phone, Jensen had a second sense about that sort of thing. “It’s turned on.”

 

“ _Yahtzee_. Password?”

 

“Nautilus.”

 

“Ookay. The car hire company should be able to trace you through the signal and send someone to the rescue. I’ll phone them now and get back to you. Is your phone fully charged?”

 

“”Yeah! I’m not a fucking kid.”

 

“No, but you’re a surly bastard when you’re hopelessly lost and possibly facing death. I’ll call you back as soon as.”

 

Jensen got back to him less than ten minutes later.

 

“There’s good news and there’s bad. The good news is that apparently you were headed in the right direction. The bad news is that the hire car people don’t have an office in the area, they’ve contacted a local place who are on their way to either fix or recover you and the vehicle. Give me a call when they turn up, if they’re not there inside an hour I’ll get in contact with the hire company again. You are gonna sue, right?”

 

“You bet your ass.”

 

It was way too hot in the car, it wasn’t exactly cool out of it but it sure beat the hell out of sitting inside a metal box lined with ass burning leather. Jeff took off his tie, throwing it back inside the car, and un-tucked his shirt from his suit pants in an effort to cool down a little before pulling out a cigarette and leaning up against the car door to smoke it.

 

By the time he saw the approaching trail of dust that announced the arrival of another vehicle he’d played a game of solitaire on his Blackberry and smoked three more cigarettes. He stowed the phone back in his pants pocket then shielded his eyes from the sun, hoping the approaching dust cloud heralded a tow truck.

 

That dust cloud was moving pretty rapidly and after a minute Jeff could pick out the outline of a battered tow truck and let out a sigh of relief. Above the noise of the engine he could hear music and he realised the driver must have the windows down as the strain of heavy rock, Guns and Roses’ ‘ _Sweet Child O’ Mine_ ’, in fact, was blaring out. The sign on the side, as it pulled up just in front of him read ‘ _Beaver’s Auto and Salvage_ ’.

 

The glare from the sun stopped him from seeing the driver but Jeff waited, as the engine cut out and the music followed it, anticipating some spotty teen in greasy overalls and a John Deere cap.

 

He realised that he’d promised to let Jensen know when the mechanic turned up and pulled out his phone and made the call.

 

Jensen must have been waiting for the call and he answered at once. “Where are you? Has the recovery vehicle turned up?”

 

“Just arrived. ‘Beaver’s Auto and Salvage’ according to the logo on the truck.”

 

“Good, that’s the name the hire company gave me.”

 

“Listen, can you try and contact Collins, let him know that I’ll be late?”

 

“Do we even have a number for him? We have his agent’s number.”

 

“We must have it on file somewhere.”

 

“Misha Collins?”

 

The voice, from right in front of him, startled Jeff. He’d been so intent on his call he hadn’t noticed anyone get out of the truck. What he saw made him suddenly hotter than ever.

 

 He had to look up and then up again, at what had to be around six feet six of mechanic. This was no spotty teenager, this was a man; a built and gorgeous _young_ man. Instead of a John Deere cap a blue bandana held back long, coppery brown hair and instead of greasy overalls a pair of skin tight jeans encased long (oh, so long) legs and a tan coloured vest embraced a ripped upper body. There was something familiar about him which was kinda odd because Jeff rarely forgot a face and he knew he wouldn’t forget this particular face in a hurry.

 

 “Are you wanting to speak to Misha Collins?” He asked again.

 

“Erm, yeah, sorry. I’m Jeff Morgan, I drove out here to see Mr Collins, I just wanted to let him know I was going to be late.”

 

“Morgan?” He frowned and then dug a large, long fingered hand into the pocket of those amazingly tight jeans and pulled out a folded sheet of paper. “According to the hire company I’m here to recover…” He checked the license plate. A Mr J Dean, right make of vehicle, wrong license plate.”

 

“What? Oh for fuck’s sake!”

 

 

“Jeff, _Jeff_ … _Jeff_!” His phone was shouting at him and he remembered he still had Jensen on the line. “Excuse me, just for a second,” he apologised. “Yeah, Jensen, sorry.”

 

“Did I hear that right, did they give the recovery people the wrong details?”

 

“I want the lawyers onto this Jensen.” He was way past patience. “Today!”

 

“I’ll deal with it, don’t worry. What about the recovery guy?”

 

“Just give me a second.”  Jeff sighed and looked back at the mechanic. “Look, the hire company have fucked up, big time. My name is Jeffrey Dean Morgan not J Dean and…”

 

“The hire company don’t seem to know their ass from their elbow?” His rescuer grinned and fuck it if he didn’t have dimples.

 

Jeff smiled back. “Pretty much; shitty car _and_ shitty paper work too, apparently.”

 

“Don’t worry about it. Surprisingly we don’t get all that many business men in broken down Lexus hire cars around here, at least not on Fridays. Now if this had been Monday, man…”

 

Jeff chuckled. “Bad rush hour, huh?”

 

He had an infectious grin. “Like you wouldn’t believe.” A slight frown lined his forehead. “About Misha…”

 

“You know Collins?”

 

“Well yeah, I work for him actually.” Jeff’s eyes flicked to the tow truck and the mechanic’s grin returned. “Jim Beaver’s my uncle, everyone in Pressfield multi-tasks. I’m an anthropology major interning for Misha. The thing is, he’s on a field trip in the Martin foothills. He won’t be back for three days. He never mentioned that anyone was coming, which isn’t _all_ that surprising, he tends to be a little… focused.”

 

“Shit! All this damn way for nothing.” Jeff gave an exasperated sigh.

 

“If you don’t mind me asking, why _are_ you here? You don’t strike me as a man with much of an interest in anthropology.”

 

“Well you’re right about that. Like you said, the people of Pressfield multi-task and Mr Collins, I understand, is no exception.”

 

“Oh, so you’re here about his novel?” The killer smile was back.

 

“I am.”

 

“You don’t look like I’d imagine a publisher would look either.”

 

“Actually I’m not in publishing, I’m here because I bought the movie rights to ‘ _Earth_ _Angel_ ” his book. Jeff grinned but the mechanic didn’t.

 

“They’re making it into a movie?” Just for a moment he looked crestfallen but then his eyes lit up. “Wait a minute, Jeffrey Dean Morgan, of course. I knew I’d heard that name somewhere before but I always thought it was three people.”

 

Jeff was certain he could hear laughter coming from his phone. He reminded himself that producers weren’t exactly in movies for the fame. “So, you know a lot about me and I know that you’re an anthropologist, a mechanic…”

 

“And presenter of the late night request show on Radio Pressfield.”

 

Jeff laughed. “ _Oo_ kay, but I still don’t know your name.”

 

“Shit, sorry, I’m Jared Padalecki but my friends call me Jay.”

 

As soon as the name was out Jeff understood why this Jared seemed so familiar. “Jay, you’re Jay?” Jaybird, the reluctant hero of Misha Collins’ book. Jeff had fallen in love with the character in the first chapter and he realised Collins had described _this_ man, his character, in the most exquisite and perfect detail.

 

“Erm, yeah,” he sighed. “So I’m told.” Even with that golden tan his blush was obvious.

 

A light turned on in Jeff’s head. “Wait are you saying you haven’t read the book?”

 

“A book about a gay angel? Man, I didn’t think _anyone_ would read it. My mom read it, cried and sent Misha a cake. My sister read me extracts from it over the phone while _she_ cried and, just to make life even more embarrassing, Pressfield is having its first gay pride day in my honour.”

 

“So you are…”

 

“Gay, yeah. _Very_ out these days obviously and fairly proud.”

 

Jeff shook his head. “Well hell. I just, I knew you seemed familiar and here you are. It’s a great book, hell, I was in love with you after chapter…” Jeff froze once he realised what he’d just said. “That is, erm…”

 

Jay, no _Jared_ flushed again. “I-I should maybe…” He pointed. “The car?”

 

“Oh yea,” Jeff nodded. “And I should maybe…” He shook his phone suddenly, aware that Jensen was still on the line and saying his name.

 

He moved away from the car a little before resuming the call.

 

“Jensen.”

 

“Did you know your phone actually has a mute button? I’d tell you where it was but if I did I’d miss out on priceless moments like this. Fuck, if only I’d had the foresight to tape this! You know, on a more serious note, we could be in a world of trouble here don’t you? Just how closely does this Pada-whatever fit the description of Jaybird?”

 

“To the letter,” Jeff admitted, trying and failing to remove the wistful note from his voice.

 

“Really? Even the eyes? _Tip-tilted, soul searching eyes.”_ Jeff realised Jensen was reading from the book. “ _They seemed to change their colour from one minute to the next and had the ability to fill you_ _with warmth or strike fear in your heart if they looked upon you in anger._ He has those eyes?”

 

“Absolutely.”

 

“Wow.” Jensen cleared his throat. “So are we still thinking about casting Fassbender?”

 

“No.” He was totally wrong, Jeff realised. Who the hell he could cast, now he’d seen the real thing, he didn’t know.

 

“Thank the gods. So what now, with you? What are you going to do?”

 

“I really do need to speak with Collins and there’s no way I’m getting back to the city tonight, so I’m thinking I may have to stay on here for a few days…”

 

“No, no, Jeff I know what you’re thinking and that’s a very, very bad plan.”

 

Sometimes Jensen was best ignored. He turned to Jared only to see him bent over under the hood of the car giving Jeff a perfect view of one very fine and incredibly firm looking ass. It took a moment for him to collect himself. “Hey Jared! Is there anywhere to stay in town?”

 

“No, I’m sorry. We don’t have a hotel or anything.” Jared turned his head and smiled. “You’re welcome to stay at my place though; overnight or until Misha gets back. That is if you’re okay with dogs and don’t mind a work in progress.”

 

Jeff frowned, not understanding. “Work in progress?”

 

“I’ve built my own place but not all the rooms are finished.”

 

“How unfinished are we talking?”

 

“Mostly just messy, lots of packing crates and a couple of unfinished inner walls but I can do bed, shower and hot food, if you don’t mind it grilled.”

 

Jeff laughed. “I don’t mind if you don’t.”

 

Jared’s smile grew. “I’m thinking I wouldn’t mind at all, which is good cuz this car aint going nowhere under its own power, the electrics are fried.”

 

“Fried?”

 

“Totally, the hire company are gonna have to come out and collect it.”

 

“Then I’m grateful for your hospitality. Do you always go around saving people’s asses like this?”

 

“Despite what Misha might have written I’m no angel Mr Morgan and I wouldn’t class this as saving your ass, I’m just doing my job. Well, _one_ of my jobs.”

 

“Hey, I’m a city boy with no clue about cars, other than how to drive them, a tenuous grip on direction and I’m massively out of my element here, I’d say you saved me, and call me Jeff, huh?”

On the end of the phone he heard Jensen speak. “The sensible thing would be for you to let me send Cliff to collect you but you’re not going to let me, are you?”

 

“No, I’m fine.”

 

“And you _do_ know he’s not really an angel.”

 

Jeff grinned. “Come to that, neither am I.”

 

 

THE END

 

 

 

 


End file.
